Worst Case
by magfreak
Summary: An unexpected emergency tests Sybil as a wife and as a doctor.
1. Chapter 1

_OK, so a while ago, the lovely repmet sent me a prompt that I loved and was eager to write, but I've had so much other stuff to work on that I hadn't taken the time. And then May began, with a new Rock the AU theme (the Bransons facing emergency situations) that fit this story so perfectly that I couldn't delay any more. _

_So anyway, this is going to be a two-part story, with the conclusion coming some time this week or next depending on how the rest of the week goes. I won't say exactly what the prompt is because to do so would be to give away some key plot points, but here's some background to set things up. After Sybil gives birth (and lives, obvs), she, Tom and their daughter go to London, after Tom finds work there at a newspaper. Two years after their first daughter (Saoirse) is born, another comes along (Susan). For several years after, Sybil works as a nurse until one too many uppity doctors overrules her better judgment and she decides to put an end to it by becoming a doctor herself, with Tom supporting her every step of the way, of course. _

_When the story starts, it's 1932, and the girls are 12 and 10 respectively. Sybil has been a doctor for more than a year. As with anything I write, I am not an expert on any topic I cover, only an amateur writer with an Internet connection. Any historical or medical inaccuracies are unintentional. This is all in good fun. Onward . . . _

* * *

The ringing alarm startled Sybil so thoroughly that she dragged her pen across the page of the notebook she'd been writing on.

"Crickey," she said in frustration.

She put her pen down but left the notebook open so the big blot of ink could dry. Then, leaning across her desk she grabbed the old tin clock and flipped the alarm switch to stop the shrill sound that after almost a month she was still having trouble getting used to. She smiled as she set it back down, thinking of the day several weeks back when her daughters, having bought it used from a from a vendor on Portobello Road with their own money, gave it to her to mark her one-year anniversary as an internist at London's Mile End Hospital.

Leading up to that special day, Sybil had been complaining about always losing track of time while she worked in her office because the tiny space had no windows by which she could mark the movement of the sun. More often than not, on recent weekday afternoons, that had meant Sybil was late to pick up the girls from Miss Billings' flat. Miss Billings was their downstairs neighbor, landlady and dear friend almost from the moment the young couple had moved in. Miss Billings walked the girls home from school and occasionally watched them when both parents were off working. A former stage actress, the now elderly woman lived off the rent of her tenants and was enjoying a comfortable and quiet retirement. Having never married or had children, she loved sharing stories of her past exploits with the Branson girls, whom she found inquisitive, charming and always eager to chat. It was Saoirse who had revealed to Miss Billings that their mother had once been a lady of society and their father the cheeky chauffeur who stole her heart. No stranger to scandal or drama, Miss Billings found the whole thing terribly romantic and helped the girls write a play based on the story for the girls to act out for their parents. Tom and Sybil were grateful for her friendship and had come to love her dearly.

Once the alarm was off, Sybil looked around her office and thought about what was left for her to do. The long and narrow room, formerly a supply closet, was not much to look at, but it accommodated her needs quite well. And it rather tickled Sybil that the room had, after years of meeting its originally intended purpose, been deemed capable of fulfilling a much greater one—_Not at all unlike myself_, she would say. Her desk sat at the back of the room, facing the door, with the right side of it against the wall, leaving just enough space on the left for Sybil to come around to sit down behind it and in front of the shelving full of books that lined the back wall. Two small plush chairs offered a place for visitors—usually patients or their family members—to sit, and at the corner just inside the door were a coat rack and an elegant standing lamp that had been a gift from Mary and Edith to, in Mary's words, "spruce things up a bit."

The space wasn't much. Her childhood bedroom at Downton was at least five times as big, but this was her very own—a sanctuary of sorts and a marker of how far she had come. The rickety old clock on her desk and the pictures that stood next to it were reminders of the family she loved so dear, Tom, ever her rock, and Saoirse and Susan, who were now nearer to young women than Tom, over-protective to a fault, was comfortable admitting. The clock's alarm was a daily reminder that it was time to do her final rounds of the day so in one hour's time or so she could go home to them at a reasonable time.

Sybil looked over her notes on the cases she had seen that morning, finished out the sentence that the alarm had interrupted and closed the notebook. She walked around the desk and to the coat rack to slip on her white jacket before grabbing a smaller notepad (the same kind that Tom always carried with him for his reporting), a pencil and her stethoscope. Finally ready, she set out to do rounds before she'd leave for the day at 4 o'clock.

"Hello, Dr. Branson!"

Sybil turned as she closed the door to her office behind her to see Kitty Kelly, one of the nurses normally stationed on her floor, a frequent diner at the Bransons' roomy flat and a favorite of the girls because she was unfailingly cheerful and, like their father, a native of in Ireland.

"Off to do rounds?" Kitty asked, as the two fell in step next to one another, walking toward the nursing station at the other end of the hall.

Sybil nodded. "Rather a slow day, but it's nice to have those every once in a while."

"It'll be a long night for me," Kitty said. "I just got here an hour ago, and already, I've been vomited on twice."

"Oh, dear," Sybil replied with a smile. "Was that Mr. Fordham?"

"Indeed."

"Golly, that virus is not giving up without a fight," Sybil said, taking out her pad and pencil and making a note. "I'll be by to see him shortly."

As the two women arrived at the desk, another nurse, Penny Clark, was running up the stairs. She stopped at the top to catch her breath.

"Pardon me, Dr. Branson, Nurse Kelly," she said as she panted. "We've just had a call downstairs from the police. There was a raid at an underground club, not too far from here."

"What kind of club?" Kitty asked.

"I don't know—only that it's illegal, I suppose," Penny said, still breathing heavily.

"I've heard of these," Sybil said. "Tom did an expose on one last week. They front as exclusive dining and dancing establishments, but in reality they are more like brothels, and in some cases, the women there are held more or less against their will, with their families under threat."

"Heavens!" Kitty exclaimed. "So why have they called us?"

"I was getting to that," Penny answered, rolling her eyes and finally breathing normally. "There was a raid this afternoon, and apparently some of the security at the club where it all happened did not want to go quietly as it were, so there was chaos and a gun battle and people were trampled—the long and the short of it is that the police are bringing the injured here, as this is the closest hospital. It's at least twenty to thirty from the sound of it. Can't say how badly injured they all are, but anyway, Nurse James downstairs told me to come fetch anyone available to help—"

"Say no more, Nurse Clark," Sybil said quickly, cutting her off, once it was clear what was happening. "I can certainly lend a hand. You go on to the other floors."

Nurse Clark nodded and headed back to the stairs.

"If you give me a second, doctor, I'll leave a note for the duty nurse," Kitty said, running around the empty desk and reaching for paper and a pen. "I've already cleaned up vomit today, what's a bit of blood going to hurt."

Sybil laughed. "One does wonder why they make the aprons and jackets white."

Kitty laughed too, and once her task was done, the two women made their way down the three flights of stairs and down the hall that led to the hospital's main first-floor wing, where patients in need of acute, immediate care were usually taken. When they arrived, Sybil could see the head nurse and the duty doctors assigned to emergent care that week already making preparations and assignments and setting up a small triage area at the doorway.

Sybil's wartime experience had taught her to quickly diagnose and determine what immediate care patients needed, skills that her coworkers had noticed and had come to depend on in her. She wasn't surprised, then, when she was asked to staff the triage area, with Kitty and two other nurses supporting her. Her role would be to make quick determinations for what potential patients needed as they came in and send them either into the ward for care, into one of three operating theaters on the first floor if the matter was serious or into the waiting area to clean up and be released after questioning from police if the injuries were minor. Sybil, as was her custom when she was serving as a duty doctor, took off her jacket and went over to the nurses' cupboard for an apron, which she found more comfortable to work quickly.

Within ten minutes, the first of the injured had begun to arrive. They were mostly bruised or badly cut, and the nurses and Sybil dispatched them quickly. The first serious wound was a police officer knifed in the right thigh. Sybil saw that part of the blade had broken off and was still lodged in the muscle, but even though the man was bleeding profusely, the knife had missed the femoral artery by an inch.

_Lucky bastard_, Sybil thought. That inch of flesh had kept him from bleeding out on the spot in seconds.

With Kitty applying pressure on the bleeding around the wound, Sybil cut the fabric of the officer's trousers, applied bandages around the piece of blade sticking out from the leg and tied the leg to the stretcher in which he'd been brought in to immobilize it so he could be transported more safely to the first operating room.

Over the next quarter of an hour, more cuts, a handful of sprains and broken bones came in and Sybil and her team made quick work of diagnosing and directing them to the appropriate care. When the flow seemed to have slowed, Sybil stepped away for a moment to the bathroom at the end of the hall to wash her hands and take off the apron she'd borrowed and slip her jacket back on.

Stepping out, she heard Kitty call out, "Another one just in, Dr. Branson! This one's a gunshot wound!"

She hadn't put her jacket all the way on when she heard Kitty. She dropped the jacket on the floor and slipped the apron back on as she ran. She could see that the patient's head, turned away from her, was caked in blood as she approached.

"Where?" She asked as she came up. All four nurses hovered over the patient removing extraneous clothing to find the entry point.

"Looks like a bullet grazed the temple, and there's another on the shoulder," Kitty said, moving so Sybil could step forward.

"Oh, lord, the abdomen's been hit too!" Another nurse said cutting away the man's waistcoat.

Without bothering to look at his face—the abdominal injury would be the critical one—Sybil leaned over his chest and reached to pull away the other side of the waistcoat that the nurse had not cut away yet and the white shirt beneath.

That was when she saw it.

A thin line of uneven stitches along the fabric, maybe four inches in length.

**xxx**

"_Sybil, where is the waistcoat for this suit?" asked Tom walking into the kitchen with his shirt untucked and his braces hanging at the sides of his trousers, as Sybil made eggs. The girls sat waiting, still in their nightdresses, at the breakfast table._

"_Da, what's happened to your shirt?"_

_Before Tom saw what she was talking about, Susan ran up to her father and stuck her finger into the small hole on the left side._

_Tom swatted her hand away but laughed. "How did that get there?"_

_Susan giggled and ran back to the table, evading her father's tickling attempts. _

_Sybil set the kitchen spoon down and walked over to inspect the damage. "You manage to ruin you clothing in the oddest ways. The waistcoat is likely under the bed somewhere or at the bottom of your laundry pile."_

_Leaning over to whisper in her ear, Tom said quietly, "You're the one who likes to rip everything off."_

_Sybil gave him a look, but couldn't stop the blush that came over her cheeks. "Take it off, and I'll mend it."_

"_Can I mend it, mum?" Saoirse asked._

"_You?" Tom asked playfully. "I don't know if I trust you with my clothing."_

"_Please! Miss Billings showed us how. She said she used to make and mend all her old costumes."_

"_Well, it's a good thing," Tom said. Leaning over the table conspiratorially, he whispered to the girls, "I don't know if mam could have taught you how to do it properly."_

_Sybil laughed, but Saoirse said, "That's not very nice to say, da, since mum does all your mending because you're even more rubbish at it than she is."_

"_That's very true," Tom replied, contritely._

_He removed his shirt and threw it on top of Saoirse's head. "Have at it, my girl."_

_Then, he came up behind Sybil and without warning lifted her off the ground. _

_Sybil shrieked, causing the girls to laugh. "Three cheers for a lady who can mend people but not clothes!" Tom yelled out._

_Both girls responded at the top of their lungs, "HIP-HIP! HOORAY! HIP-HIP! HOORAY! HIP-HIP! HOORAY!"_

**xxx**

"Oh, God!"

Kitty noticed Sybil's change in demeanor immediately. "What is it?"

But Sybil didn't answer and, instead, scrambled from where she was leaning over and pushed Kitty away to look at the patient's face. Taking it into her hands, she wiped the blood that was oozing from a long gash across the side of his forehead. "Tom? TOM?"

Kitty gasped. "Oh, my god!" Luckily, her training kicked in and she immediately began to assess Tom's condition. "He's still breathing," she said. "The pulse is weak but steady."

Sybil choked out. "Oh, darling, please hang on!"

Sybil tore away what remained of the shirt so that both wounds were accessible. Her hands were shaking but also moving on instinct. A part of her, the wife, was pulling in one direction, trying to lift her above the scene, turning everything at the edges black. But another part of her, the doctor, remained focused on the wounds in front of her, using her narrowing vision to her advantage so she could focus on what she knew how to fix and letting all the chaos around her fall away.

"We need to abate the bleeding in the shoulder and immobilize it until it can be addressed properly," she croaked out, not recognizing the sound of her own voice.

"Sybil," Kitty said quietly, taking her by the shoulders from behind to pull her away, but Sybil shook her off.

"Let me go, and do as I say!" She yelled, moving on the abdomen.

Kitty gestured for one of the two other nurses with them to see to the shoulder. Then, she pointed at the other and said sternly, "You, go tell Nurse James we need a surgeon and the nearest theater cleared out and then come back with the duty doctor—"

Sybil ran around the stretcher and stuck her hand beneath Tom's back to feel around for an exit wound. There was none. "Bloody hell, he needs a surgeon now!"

On cue, two doctors ran up. "The room is ready—what are the details?"

Sybil opened her mouth to talk, but Kitty beat her to it offering first his vitals and then a summary of his wounds, leaving the most serious to last. "Gun shot to the abdomen, maybe six inches from the navel, no exit."

The surgeon looked past Kitty to Sybil for confirmation, but Kitty immediately stepped between them again. "It's Dr. Branson's husband. I've told you what you need to know, now go save him and I'll see to her."

"I'm coming into the theater!" Sybil said pushing Kitty away.

"That's not advisable doctor," the surgeon said, gesturing to those around him to lift the stretcher so they could transport Tom.

"I must!" Sybil cried.

"Dr. Branson, please," Kitty said, holding her back as the team lifted Tom and walked him to the operating theater about thirty feet away.

"NO! I need to be with him," Sybil cried.

But the team had stopped listening, instead focusing on Tom and getting him where he needed to be. Sybil followed a few steps behind with Kitty next to her to ensure that she wouldn't get in the way. They had just made it into the room and placed him on the table when Tom regained consciousness.

"What . . . where . . . Sybil . . . "

It was barely audible, but just loud enough that Sybil heard him.

"TOM!" she called out running toward the door, but Kitty grabbed her again and stopped her just as one of the nurses inside slammed it shut.

"NO! PLEASE! I NEED TO BE THERE FOR HIM! TOM!"

There was nothing Kitty could say, so she held her friend against her as she collapsed in tears.


	2. Chapter 2

_Thanks so much to everyone who read and reviewed! I know that was a crazy evil cliffhanger, but you all know I'm not __**that**__ evil, right? _

_A couple of notes, before I start the second and final installment of this one: Emergency care as we know it didn't really begin to come about until the 1960s, but much of the theory and practice behind it did emerge from the wartime experiences of military medical units caring for soldiers on the battle field. Sybil, obviously, wouldn't have been anywhere close to the front lines, but she'd have experienced the challenge of caring for truckloads of patients arriving at the hospital all at once, which was why it made sense to me to put her where she was at the time of crisis, so she'd be the first doctor to see Tom._

_And if you haven't guessed by now, repmet's prompt was that Sybil is working as a doctor in London and is forced to face a situation in which Tom has been seriously injured and is taken to her hospital. A few weeks ago on tumblr (magfreak dot tumblr dot com), I posted a sort of "prequel" drabble that took place the night before Sybil's first day working as a doctor in this universe. I decided to incorporate it into the story as another flashback, and that's where this chapter begins. Lastly, I hereby acknowledge that this may very well be the most unrealistic resolution to a medical issue since Julian Fellowes wrote the script in which Matthew walked again. Apologies to any people with actual medical knowledge out there. This is just for fun._

_Hope you all enjoy how I've wrapped this up!_

* * *

_Tom leaned on the door to their small bedroom and watched Sybil as she fidgeted with her white coat. She rolled the sleeves up slightly. Then rolled them back down. Then rolled them back up. She buttoned the coat and said, "I'm Dr. Branson, how can I help you?"_

_She frowned, took a breath, then spoke aloud to herself again, "Dr. Branson, at your service, what seems to be the problem?"_

_"My wife is nervous about her first day at her new job tomorrow, and I don't know how to tell her she shouldn't be nervous because she was born for this."_

_Sybil whipped around, suddenly embarrassed at having been caught. "Please don't tease me, or I'll be forced to remind you of how you acted before you started at the paper."_

_"Fair enough," Tom said walking up to her, turning her around so she was facing her standing mirror again and leaning his chin into her shoulder. "But see I don't think you need to be nervous because if I walked into Mile End Hospital tomorrow and saw you, I'd want no one else to tend to my wounds."_

_Sybil turned in his arms and playfully padded his head with her fingers. "As if any real injury to come to a skull as thick as this."_

_"You're ready. You've been ready, and now you have the sartorial proof."_

_Sybil looked down at her white coat. "You know, my old nurse's uniform was actually much more practical."_

_"But not nearly as becoming," Tom said as he kissed the side of her neck._

_"That's not the opinion of yours I remember," she said, giggling at his ministrations._

_"My tastes have evolved over time," he whispered into her neck._

_Sybil closed her eyes, ready to give in, but the practical side of her—the one who had gotten her through medical college as a wife and mother to two rambunctious girls—begged to be acknowledged before her husband got carried away. Without opening her eyes, Sybil asked, "So you're making breakfast for the girls and walking them to school tomorrow?"_

_Tom pulled away and began unbuttoning her coat. "Yes."_

_Sybil's fingers went to his waistcoat. "And, I'll pick them up?"_

_Tom pushed to coat off her shoulders and started to work on her blouse. "Yes."_

_"Then, we'll go to the pub for a celebratory dinner?"_

_Tom pulled Sybil over to their bed. "Yes."_

**xxx**

Sybil absently fidgeted with the collar of her white medical coat.

Kitty had brought it over to her from the spot where Sybil had dropped it earlier, in the midst of the chaos that Tom's entry into the hospital had caused.

Tom's mother, a laundress, had taught her to care for it, so despite all that Sybil had experienced in the year she'd been a doctor, it remained as crisp and white as the first time she'd put it on—a moment bright and vivid in her memory as if she'd lived it yesterday.

Sybil remembered standing in front of her mirror in their bedroom, not quite believing the site before her eyes—herself as a proper doctor.

And she remembered Tom's encouragement and . . . _enthusiasm_. He'd pulled her into bed asking her to wear her white doctor's jacket and nothing else for a week.

_I can't lose him._

When Saoirse was born, the delivery had been difficult. After, Sybil had suffered seizures and momentarily lost consciousness. She'd lost almost all memories of the event save for a brief flash of holding her daughter for the first time and a shiny-eyed Tom telling her he loved her. When danger had passed, Sybil had begged Tom to tell her what it had been like, to offer her the details that her mind—in the wake of the trauma that had ensued—had taken from her. But he wouldn't. The fear that the possibility of losing her brought to mind was too great. To recall it would be to bring on a cascade of emotions that he thought might consume him entirely, even after he knew she would be safe. Between herself and Tom, Sybil knew that he was the more emotional and sentimental of the two, so she didn't press him. But now she understood.

She was drowning, and nothing would save her. Nothing, except the sound of his voice, the look of his blue eyes peering into hers and telling her that he would be there always. For their daughters' graduations and weddings and grandchildren. For everything that would be made less happy by his absence.

Sitting in the wood chair, just outside the operating theater, from whence she'd not moved since the surgeons had taken Tom in a half-hour before. Sybil felt drops on the backs of her hands. She had become so numb to the tears, they fell from her eyes without her notice. She wasn't going to bother wiping them away until she saw another hand on her lap and a small white handkerchief. She turned, and there was Kitty, still sitting beside her. Kitty didn't smile or speak. She took Sybil's hand and squeezed it, then left the handkerchief at her fingertips. Sybil wiped her tears anew.

"Thank you," Sybil said, her voice hoarse and barely audible.

"I've called Miss Billings," Kitty offered.

Sybil's heart leapt to her throat. "Oh, the girls!" she said, bringing the handkerchief up to her eyes again to dry a new set of tears. "What has she told them?"

"Nothing, yet," Kitty said. "Only that they're to stay with her for dinner because neither of you can get away from work."

Sybil leaned back and looked up to the ceiling. "They're clever girls. They'll know something's wrong."

"But they're in good hands for now and taken care of," Kitty said. "That's what matters at the moment."

Sybil didn't answer. She prayed, once again, that she'd never have to utter the words, not to her daughters, not to anyone.

_I can't lose him. _We _can't lose him._

"When he was my father's chauffeur, he used to . . ."

"He used to what?" Kitty prodded.

Sybil tried to swallow the lump in her throat. "He used to offer his hand to help me into the motor when I was three feet from it, and he'd not let go until I was well inside."

Kitty smiled as Sybil chuckled, in spite of herself, at the memory.

"It was years before I realized he only did that for me." Sybil sighed, then added, "It's like that still."

"What do you mean?"

"He loves me in ways I don't notice . . . I don't—I can't—"

"Sybil, don't lose faith yet. We don't know what's going to happen."

"It's just," Sybil said, lifting her hands to her face. "I'm scared because I don't know all the ways I will miss him if he leaves me."

"Sybil—"

"I'm sorry."

"Please don't apologize," Kitty said, wrapping her arm across her friend's shoulders. "I can only imagine how hard this must be, but you can't lose hope."

"How can I cling to it? I'm a doctor. I know what the worst case is."

"You're not a doctor right now. You're a wife." Kitty shifted to look Sybil in the eye. "All right, then. If you can't stop thinking like a doctor, remember how long he's been in there. If there were no hope of saving him, they'd have come out to tell you by now. That's something, isn't it?"

Sybil sighed and nodded, but it wasn't enough to convince her. His voice. His eyes looking into hers as full of life as always. That's what it would take.

**xxx**

The first patient that Sybil lost as a doctor was a woman in her sixties who'd come in with advanced pneumonia. She was poor and had only one son, who lived in Liverpool. Her neighbors hadn't realized how serious her illness was and didn't bring her to the hospital until it was too late. Sybil knew from her first examination that there was little that could be done for the woman, except make her final hours comfortable. But that knowledge didn't stop her from trying every remedy immediately available and every therapy she could call to mind. The treatment that Sybil administered helped the woman just enough that her son, when he arrived two days later, easily convinced himself that a miracle recovery was close at hand. When she died a week later, having survived far longer than any of the doctors at the hospital had guessed she would, Sybil struggled mightily to keep her composure as she told the son that it was over.

Sybil had seen many men die during the war, but in wartime, death is an expected outcome. Even though their doctors commit themselves to doing their level best to save them, soldiers strap on their boots knowing that they might not live to take them back off. Witnessing a _preventable_ death, for Sybil, was an entirely different sort of emotional challenge. Many of Sybil's colleagues told her in the aftermath of that first death that the first lost patient is, in its own way, a good milestone to reach and the marker of a novice's final entry into the fraternity of doctors. That lesson—how to go on to the next when you could not help the last—is the last and most important in any medical education.

She'd seen other doctors deliver the worst news. Some did with grace and caring. Others were perfunctory and emotionless. But she'd learned that there was no correct way to do it. How could there be, when some families appreciated a gentle manner and others just wanted you to stop beating around the bush and get on with it?

"A maudlin doctor is of no use to anyone," a patient's mother had told her once.

_So how will I react to the news?_

It was another half-hour before the door opened and Sybil had her answer.

The sight of her, sitting just outside the operating theater startled the surgeon. Usually, the walk to the seating area at the hospital's entrance offered a chance to collect one's thoughts. Sybil understood his hesitation and looked down, wringing her hands. With a long sigh, he walked over to her. Sybil looked up again when she heard his footsteps nearing.

"Dr. Branson," he began, but stopped to collect himself. He took another deep breath, then continued, "As you are aware, with this type of injury—"

Kitty, who'd stood with Sybil and wrapped her arm around her, rolled her eyes. "Oh, for heaven's sake, Dr. Thornton, just tell us if he's come through it!?"

The surgeon did not take kindly to the reprimand and leveled a glare at Kitty that she knew meant she'd be paying for her insubordination later. (She did not care.) But looking again at Sybil's desperate expression, he knew he had to answer.

"Yes," Dr. Thornton said, finally. "Yes, he's made it through the worst, and his vital signs are stable for the time being."

Sybil collapsed into Kitty's arms once again, this time out of relief. Kitty and Dr. Thornton helped her back onto the chair on which she'd been sitting.

"I do not mean to say he is out of danger," the doctor stressed, kneeling at Sybil's feet, once she'd sat down.

Sybil gathered herself and nodded at the doctor. "The risk of infection is high—I know."

"There's that," the doctor agreed, "and, well . . . the bullet was lodged in the spleen, so in the extraction of the bullet, we had to remove a piece of it. What remains should continue to function normally, but we'll have to keep an eye on any longer-term effects—provided that he wakes up, of course."

"You mean there's still an if, in that regard?" Sybil asked, slightly alarmed once more.

Dr. Thornton sighed. "Your husband's body has gone through a major trauma, Dr. Branson, I don't need to explain the implications of his injury. He remains with us even after all we've put him through. He won't wake until he's ready, and that may be in the next week or the next hour."

Sybil swallowed a lump in her throat. "Or he may not wake at all?" she said in a whisper.

"That's to do with his resilience, and, well, you have a better answer for that question than I do."

"Thank you, doctor," Kitty said.

He stood and took a few steps before turning back toward Sybil and Kitty. "I find that it offers some comfort to speak to patients in such a state."

"For them or us?" Sybil asked with a rueful smile.

Dr. Thornton smiled. "Does it matter?"

**xxx**

As Tom was taken to a private room to recover, Sybil called Miss Billings and explained the situation in detail, then asked the woman to bring the girls to the hospital so she could tell them in person.

"Are you sure that's wise?" Miss Billings asked on the other end of the telephone.

"I'm not," Sybil said with a sigh. "But Tom would want me to be honest with them about what's happened, and so I will be."

In the time that she waited for them, Sybil sat quietly next to Tom, whose head had been cleaned and bandaged. Save for the setting and his injuries, he looked as if he was suffering nothing more than a particularly deep sleep. Sybil didn't want to give herself false hope, but she found strength and peace in the gentle rise and fall of his chest. She wondered if keeping the girls in the dark—perhaps send them to Downton while Tom was in the hospital—would not have been an easier way of handling things. But among the promises that she and Tom had made to one another as parents was to never hide the hardships of life from their children. And anyway, Sybil knew her daughters. They'd suspect something was wrong and steal away from Downton, even with all the servants watching, and find a way onto the train to come back home and find out the truth for themselves. Sybil thought them both much braver—and more audacious—than even she and Tom had been.

When they did arrive about an hour after Sybil had called, Kitty went with Miss Billings to find some bread and ham for a makeshift dinner for them, while Sybil pulled them into her office to tell them the whole story, sparing few details. Saoirse and Susan sat side-by-side holding hands silently throughout their mother's narrative. To gather strength to relate to them the possibility that he might not wake up, Sybil had looked down at her hands. When she looked at them again, they were both red-faced from holding back the tears.

"Oh, my darlings, if you need to cry, do. It's OK to be sad. You don't have to be strong for mummy."

"But we need to be strong for da!" Saoirse said, wiping her cheek forcefully as if frustrated that the tear had squeezed its way out.

"Can we see him?" Susan asked in a voice so small, it broke Sybil's heart.

"Yes, we can," Sybil said, stepping forward and kneeling so she could gather both girls in her arms. The three Branson women held each other tightly and let the tears flow, despite any stated desire not to do so.

After a few minutes, sitting back on her heels, Sybil took turns wiping both of their faces, "and we should talk to him—and even cry in front of him if we need to."

"Even if he's not awake?" Susan asked.

Sybil nodded. "It'll remind him that he needs to get well for us."

"Well, I won't cry," Saoirse insisted, even as she wiped her face and nose with her handkerchief. "Not any more."

"Not even a little?" Sybil asked tucking a small piece of her daughter's hair behind her ear. "Because I daresay he'll think you've gone totally English on him if you don't."

This last made Saoirse laugh in spite of herself, but almost as soon as the sound was out of her mouth it turned into a sob. "Oh, God, mum, if he's gone who will talk to us in Irish? I haven't had time to learn it!"

"Me neither!" Susan cried.

Sybil pulled both girls into her arms once again, and again they cried together for several minutes.

A light knock on the door interrupted them. It was Kitty, a serene smile on her face that puzzled Sybil.

"What is it, Kitty?" She said standing up.

"Tom is awake and wants to know if you're going to spend all night in here crying because he'd like to go back to sleep."

The happy shrieks heard were so loud that the duty nurse ran down the hall to see what all the noise was. They were so excited, in fact, that the doctor—after checking Tom over—offered a stern warning that they calm themselves before going into the room because the patient was weak and needed _rest_. So Susan and Saoirse went in, kissed their father on the side of his forehead that wasn't wrapped in bandages and then ran back out of the room so they could keep jumping up and down in joy.

"THREE CHEERS FOR DA!"

"HIP, HIP! HOORAAAAAY! HIP, HIP! HOORAAAAAY! HIP, HIP! HOORAAAAAY!"

Back inside the room, Tom could hear the commotion through the door, and he drew strength from it. Sybil leaned her head against his and cried. After several minutes, she stood back up and pulled a chair up to his bed.

"Thank you," he whispered, his eyes opening and closing as if he were fighting sleep.

"For what? For not killing you myself for going on that raid with the police? Don't EVER do that to me again!"

Tom tried to laugh, but it turned into a wince. "You're joking with me, so that's a good sign. Anyway, someone has to write the story."

Sybil smiled. "I preferred it at the start, when your editor didn't trust enough to give you anything more than vaudeville reviews."

Tom closed his eyes again. "That's not what I remember."

"My sensibilities have changed over time."

Even with his eyes closed Tom smiled. Sybil stood and leaned over to give him a kiss on the forehead. "You need to rest. I'll go get those two to settle down."

Tom squeezed Sybil's hand and opened his eyes again. "I was thanking you for saving me."

"I didn't perform your surgery, darling. I was a bit too hysterical for that."

"There's more than one kind of saving."

Sybil smiled. "Well, then, thank you for the same."

They watched each other for a moment.

"Can you do something for me?" Sybil asked.

"Anything . . . well, within reason, given my current circumstances."

"Will you tell me everything is going to be all right?"

"Love?"

"Yes?"

"Everything is going to be all right."


End file.
